


The Room Where It Happens...

by alessfansama



Series: The Gloryverse or Bladewave and the Decepticon High Command [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: All the pairing with be platonic, Decepticon High Command, Decepticon Police, Decepticon friendship, Friendship, Gen, I don't know if this has a plot, I don't know what I'm doing, I'll tell you when I get there, I'll warn you if that changes, It's like normal friendship but with knives and poison, It's mostly meetings and fun times, Tarn gets Bullied, mentions of police brutality, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-10-13 19:39:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17494058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessfansama/pseuds/alessfansama
Summary: “And who are you?” asked the Decepticon leader and the entire room shifted, every single optic was on her. She could feel all of them scrutinizing her, looking her up and down, trying to figure her out. She canceled her purge protocol before it activated, she felt like vomiting.“Uh, I’m Bladewave, sir, Shockwave's secretary,” focusing her flickering yellow gaze on Megatron, trying her best to appear calm but probably failing.Don’t say it to her face or she’ll rip your head off but Bladewave is definitely the Decepticon version of Bumblebee. She’s small and cute and friends with everyone. Much to the horror of her fellow Decepticons.Join Bladewave as she worms her way up to her dream job in Decepticon High Command, making both friends and foes along the way. For better AND for worst, Bladewave’s influence might just change the outcome of the war.





	1. Reporting for duty!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Bladewave, my Transformers OC, she is female decepticon who’s gimmick is that she is “nice” (sort of). The world that she is a part of is called The Gloryverse, it’s inspired by lots of iterations of Transformers but no one specific universe. In a butterfly flaps its wing sort of way, Bladewave and the people she recruits into the ‘Cons, change the tone and structure of the Decepticon army and the overall outcome of the war. In a highly militarized Decepticon army, she’s the underdog that reminds everyone: sometimes it’s not about the destination but the friends you make along the way.

Bladewave was really nervous, almost in a state of panic. She followed Shockwave down the hall with a steady step, like the diligent assistant she was, but on the inside her components turned to goo. High command, a meeting with high command. This was the dream and she would fight through bots and bolts to stay there.

She filed into the command room after Shockwave, who strode past huge tanks and tall slim seekers, most of which she recognized by reputation if nothing else. These were generals and high caliber warriors, Bladewave felt small in comparison. And she was small, as a motorcycle alt mode, the war-frame upgrade hadn’t really changed her size, barely more than half of Shockwave’s full height, she was always just a little bit shorter than the average mech. Lost in thought she almost bumped into Shockwave as he stopped just two chairs away from the head of the long elongated table at the center of the room. He took his seat and his assistant quickly took her seat beside him.

A couple minutes later everyone was in their chairs, Soundwave sat next to Shockwave with Starscream in front of them, then Megatron strode into the room and sat at the head of the table, sitting in between the two. His very presence commanded the room; Bladewave having never been in the same room as him, at least up close, was impressed. With just a nod of his head the meeting started in full swing, one by one in their previously assigned order mechs would stand and gave their reports, interjected by others who asked questions or added comments. This was Bladewave’s own personal heaven, her optics flickered red to yellow and yellow to red, head moving from mech to mech as she tried to absorb all the information. 

“Shockwave,” said Megatron, “your report.” Shockwave turned and looked at her with his single optic, and then went back to working on his data pad. Like almost everyone else, he had better things to do, after so many meetings for the past vorns, everybot just wanted to get it over with.

“I’ll be giving the report in his steed, Lord Megatron.” Bladewave said as she stood up, hoping everyone would remain inattentive to her presence. 

“And who are you?” asked the Decepticon leader and the entire room shifted, every single optic was on her. She could feel all of them scrutinizing her, looking her up and down, trying to figure her out. She canceled her purge protocol before it activated, she felt like vomiting.

“Uh, I’m Bladewave, sir, Shockwave's secretary,” focusing her flickering yellow gaze on Megatron, trying her best to appear calm but probably failing.

“Assistant” interjected Shockwave, otherwise uninterested in her banal introduction.

“Assistant Secretary,” she amended, ignoring him in the same way, giving a tentative smile.

“Mmm, and why are you at all apt in giving this report?"

“Well, I’ve been in charge of most military operations for the past 49 cycles, I might as well be the one giving the reports.” Bladewave replied, not realizing the question had been rhetorical and meant to chastise. “Though, I’ve also been helping in those task for much longer…” 

“Shockwave?” Megatron turned to him instead. Shockwave turned toward the Decepticon leader and nodded, understanding he had to explain. 

“Having Bladewave deal with more menial tasks, I am able to prioritize and better deal with more pressing issues and important projects,” he meant his own personal science projects, Bladewave could tell, having been dragged into helping with some of those as well.

“So someone else can just do your job for you?” Starscream interrupted with a snide look on his face.

“I have need for my assistant, so that I may perform my job at the highest capacity.” 

“What the hell even is your job?” The seeker interrupted once more with his shriek like voice.

Shockwave looked stoic but, having spent much of their time together trying to decipher his emotions, Bladewave could tell that he was annoyed by the second in command’s unnecessary comment. “It is the military operations commander’s job,” he explained, “to make sure our leader, in this case Lord Megatron, is freed up to deal with command issues and does not have to get bogged down in the mire of military difficulties. If I do my job well, you will never know about it.”

“So, when your performing at your highest capacity, we don’t notice you. Is that what your saying?” Said the Air Commander with a bored tone of voice.

“That is correct.” Shockwave answered.

“But also if you weren’t here and you were doing nothing, we wouldn’t notice you.”  

“…”

“In fact, some random femme has just been doing your job for the last 50 cycles, so how can anyone know the difference between you performing at the highest level and you doing nothing. They both feel the same, correct?”

“Possibly,” said Shockwave in a deadpan, in his mind he contemplated shooting Starscream with his arm cannon. 

“Enough,” said Megatron, annoyed with Shockwave and his second’s antics. “Give the report.”

Bladewave nearly jumped out of her frame as Megatron’s optics were on her again. “Uh, me?” she asked.

“Yes, you.” His gaze was piercing.

Not waiting for anymore prompting Bladewave eagerly gave her report, this was her moment to prove herself. She had risen through the ranks, with the passion of a newly made star, and had always aspired to be a part of the command chain, but there are always limits to how far one can reach. Someone like her getting considered for command on her own was impossible, she was too much of an unknown.

She needed connections, so she did the next best thing: she became Shockwave’s assistant ( ~~willing slave~~ ), doing whatever he asked of her: helping in nauseating experiments, volunteering for painful nauseating experiments, cleaning up after said messy painful nauseating experiments, and worst of all procuring “specimens”. Though not all of it was bad, desk work was often where Bladewave felt most comfortable, doing his paperwork, organizing tasks, slowing taking charge in military details. She was exceptionally good at military management, almost completely taking over in recruitments, orientation, and morale. 

Her report was concise and clear, well practiced and perfect, maybe a little to well practiced having wasted all her time the previous day reciting it in her room. From memory she summarized all the work she’d done in the past weeks and presented the achievements. It wasn’t to short and it hadn’t dragged on for long. As she finished she felt a lot of tension leave her body, she felt quite proud, her stress was dissipating. Even Megatron looked impressed, at least that’s what she hoped his appraising gaze meant.

“That was an excellent report,” said Megatron. Bladewave moved to sit down but as she met his cold red optics she stood straight once more. “...Bladewave, was it?”

Bladewave opened her mouth to answer, but Megatron continued.

“I find it interesting. Your work clearly shows you are competent, and yet this is the first I’ve seen of you. I’m usually informed when a talented soldier proves vital to the Decepticons. So, how is it that a femme like you was hidden from me. In other words, if you’re so competent then why haven’t I heard of you before?”

“...uh”  Bladewave did not know what to say _that_ , but the stress was back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't know what I'm doing. But I've heard that fanfiction is about having fun and this was me having fun. I have lots of ideas for this story, I hope to continue. Also, even though I love all these characters, I got know clue on how to write them.


	2. A rose by any other name…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What’s in a name? That which we call a rose,_   
>  _By any other name would smell as sweet._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> “You’re telling me you’ve changed your name FIVE times?” Starscream was shocked, so were a lot of other mechs in the room; Cybertronians did not change designations more than a couple times, if at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to give a description of what Bladewave looked like so I hamfisted it to the beginning of this chapter. In this chapter there is a first glimpse Bludgeon and Bladewave’s friendship, hope it feels natural. Also my sense of humor is memes and I can’t stop myself, sorry. :/

Everyone stared on at the short little femme being confronted by their leader. She had purple armor with silver-gray plating underneath, almost identical in coloring to Shockwave, very much his protege in looks if nothing else. She even had a pair of yellow optics to match his single one and similar long audial fins, though hers were purple, that ended in squared tips. She would have been a small motorcycle version of him if not for her brick colored face ( ~~the fact that she had a face~~ ) and the few dark red accents that ran along the sides of her whole body, as well as the mustard colored vents and center piece on her helm.

“If you’re so competent then why haven’t I heard of you before?” said Megatron.

Ouch. That’s smart. But it was understandable he wasn’t about to allow someone with nothing to show for into command meetings no matter how good their reports were.

“Uh… well, I’m sure you’re not expected to know every single name and exploit of every single Decepticon. You’re a great leader but even that can’t be expected of you. That’s fragging ridiculous, there's just too many.” Replied Bladewave, answering without thinking. Megatron’s optics widened slightly, taken aback by the crude reply.

“Beside,” Bladewave continued, having not noticed her rude tone. “I’ve changed my name a lot… You might of heard of me by some other designation.”

Starscream was highly amused, almost nostalgic, he wondered if had he ever been so clumsy. He could almost picture this young femme pulling out a cannon to present to their lord as a gift. Aimlessly trying to please him, fumbling with her words, like he had done so long ago.

“No amount of-”

“How many designations have you had?” Starscream interrupted Megatron, not actually interested in the one or two names the purple colored femme may have had in the past. But amused enough to want to drag on her likely dismissal.

“I’ve changed my name 5 or 6 times, maybe more.”

What.

“I mean, they have more or less similar glyphs…” Bladewave had a pensive look on her red colored face. “...But that’s not counting when I’d change ‘em back.”

“You’re telling me you’ve changed your name FIVE times?” Starscream was shocked, so were a lot of other mechs in the room; Cybertronians did not change designations more than a couple times, if at all. Five times was a ridiculous amount.

“Five, seven. Six. Se- six. Uh. Six. Six times, for sure.”

“All oficial designations?” asked Megatron, he was leaning forward in his chair, as curious as everyone else. Nicknames were one thing, but if it was oficial it would be unheard of.

“Yup, I mean, yes sir.” Yellow optics returning to meet her lord’s red ones.

“Why would you do that?” Starscream was invested now, what was this femme’s deal?

“Oh, well, it’s like starting over...? Um, every time I join a squadron I don’t wanna be compared to what I’ve done in the past. So to erase the link to any of my previous failures, I join with a new name and all the stuff I did before isn’t linked to the new name. Like having different versions of yourself. ‘Cause you’re always getting stronger so you should be limited by expectations of your previous… version?”

“But then none of your accomplishments get linked!” To Starscream that was unthinkable, how could this weird femme stand to not be acknowledged for her achievements?

“Yeah, I mean, that is the downside. It totally makes sense why you’ve never heard of me Lord Megatron,” Bladewave turned to address Megatron, remembering that she still had his approval to win. “It’s like instead of one decepticon soldier who did a bunch of things, you’re hearing about, what you think is, six different soldiers with separate successes, that individually don’t add up to a lot. If it had been the name of one soldier who had the long and accomplished record equal to that of six or seven soldier then you would have know of me... for sure.”

“Nonsensical talk.” Soundwave spoke up, this was an offense to his intelligence work. If she was truly noteworthy he would have reported it to Megatron.

“Hey, that’s not fair, I can prove it to you.” Bladewave held back a snarl, she had worked under Soundwave before… did he not recognize her, it hadn’t been that long ago, or was he so opposed to her that he was trying to discourage? Either way she hated him, though it would not do her any good to show it. She glanced around the room, “There are people in this very room who have met or at least heard of me by other names.”

“Like who?” asked the decepticon leader.

“Bludgeon,” She answers, and everyone swerved their heads, turning to look at a surprise skeleton-faced samurai on the other side of the room.

“What? When?” He looked quite confused, she felt a little bad throwing him under the bus like that.

“I served in 44th Grounder Division around the same time that he did.” Bladewave explained. “I went by the name… Nightrider.” She turned toward him and watched as realization crept onto his face, he remembered her!

“Well slag me! Nightrider! Yeah, I remember you!”

“‘Course you do, I’m unforgettable!” She was smiling, “and it’s Bladewave now.”

“Bladewave, huh. Good choice. Did you ever remember Stormbreaker’s party?” He grinned, at least as far as Bladewave could tell. It was hard to figure out the facial expressions of someone with a skeleton for a face, especially after such a long time apart.

“Only the first part, can’t recall how it ended.”

“Ha! You wouldn’t! And what you did at Stella’s ritus?”

“Honestly, I don’t remember, I was probably fragged up.” Bladewave lied. She was starting to regret reminding him of her, he had some pretty good stories that cast her in a real bad light. “Yeah... I was crazy back then.” She gave an awkward forced laughter.

“Fragged up?” asked Skywarp, he was fascinated. Thundercracker almost flinched, surprised his trinemate had asked but grateful. He sat between him and Starscream, directly in front of the mysterious Bladewave. Like his trine he was enraptured, she was making it so interesting; this was definitely one of the best meetings they’ve had in… in a real long time.

“Yeah, the 44th Division was fortunate enough to have… well, some of its members had previously worked in an energon refinery… let’s just say that one of our energon dispensers dispensed high grade, and after several victories we’d… celebrate. Hard.”

“That’s not the only thing that was hard!” Bludgeon interjected and Bladewave did a double take, covering her mouth to stifle a laugh. “One time Night- sorry, Bladewave got so energized she woke up alone, on the other side of the planet, surrounded by…”

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” She interrupted him and pointed straight at him. “I’ll let you finish, but I would just like to remind you... that I too have stories about you when you were in the four four. So... watch ya self!”

“Now ain’t that the truth,” he replied with a smirk.

“Bludgeon,” their attention turned to Megatron, “do you vouch for this… for Bladewave?”

They turned to look at each other, Bludgeon gave her a once over. She her optics fluttered, a brief flash of them turning red then back to a steady yellow.

“Do you still practice your Metallikato?”

She lifted her leg high and straight, angled to the side and above her head.“It would be foolish not to,” she replied in a stoic voice. They stared at each other for a long while, then burst out laughing at the same time, together. She put her foot down. For many it was their first time hearing Bludgeon give a genuine laugh, but it wasn’t hers.

“You were never good at the sword.”

“Only a little at the blade,” she remarked. They understood each other, even after so long.

“Are you still good at cooking? The energon goodies that you used to make-akch” Bludgeon choked for a moment as a small solid candy cube hit the back of his throat. She gently drew her arm back, a bit surprised that she had caught him by surprise. He cleared his throat with a cough and harshly swallowed the goodie. “Again,” he said, his eyes more focused. “I didn’t get a good taste.” His voice was hard.

Everyone was tense, holding in their ventilations. Many weren't sure what was happening, but even they held their breath, looking back and forth between the two. Bladewave gave a quick flick of her wrist and a candied energon cube was held between her middle finger and index. No one saw how she got it or where she could have pulled it from. In an instance her arm gave a jab forward, the rest of her body still, then her arm was at her side once more as if it had never moved. Bludgeon chomped down, catching the goodie with his razor sharp teeth. All happening in less than a second.

“The first time was faster.”

Bladewave shook her head in disagreement, “You were just unprepared.” She watched as the sweet was moved around in his mouth, dissolving, he started crunching on it. Back then they used to throw candies up in the air and catch them on their tongues, or eat them off the floor if they had been too drunk. “Is it as good as you remember?”

“Better.” He replied.

She felt an indescribable amount of joy. She held her arms, hugging her body close in order to stop herself from bursting into dance. Though she couldn’t prevent shuffling from one foot to another. Her lips pressed tightly against each other or else she’d grin til her face hurt. Her field- Slag. Her field, she reeled it in as tight as she could but it was already too late. Everyone had brushed against it, probably even the ones toward the other end of the table near Bludgeon. The whole room was staring at her. How annoying, it had only been a second, hadn’t they felt someone be happy before, jeez. Sometimes she hated her absurdly large HUB, she had a hard time keeping it in check when she was happiness. But now she was so embarrassed. Embarrassed and happy. Stupidly happy. Damn.

“I’ll vouch for Bladewave, Lord Megatron,” said Bludgeon, breaking everyone out of their stupor.

This was the icing on the oil cake. Bladewave felt like she was at the center of the universe. She had two vouches, Shockwave, who was ignoring her, but whose actions in bringing her to the meeting equated quite nicely to a vouch. And Bludgeon, whom she was now reunited with, her old friend. She still needed Megatron’s approval but at this point it wouldn’t matter if she didn’t get it now. She would at least be on his radar, and could try for it later. She might as well have fun.

“Would you like to hear another name, my lord?”


	3. Woop-woop! That's the sound of da police

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The police them have a likkle gun_   
>  _So when I'm on the streets, I walk around with a bigger one_   
>  _(Woop-woop!) I hear it all day_
> 
>  
> 
> “You got me! You played me,” Bladewave exclaimed, pointing at him. “With your stupid sexy wings and bright distracting colors! Primus, I'm such a fool. You got me!”  
> “Yes I did.” Starscream smirked, victorious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad cop, good cop… Bladewave was a fun cop. Vos doesn’t really show up but their past together is mentioned. Tarn is bullied, but I think he needs it. I flesh out a Division that nobody cares about.

Bladewave sat down, deciding she did not need to stand. She rested her chin and framed her face with her hands, elbows propped on the table. She gave Megatron a small relaxed smile, awaiting his decision. 

Megatron was stuck in an awkward position, if he let this femme continue her outlandish story he’d be admitting that he found her just as interesting as everybody else did. Which was true. He could just end the meeting here and continue to interrogate her in private, but… around the meeting room his soldiers were staring him down, pleading with their eyes. Only Soundwave seemed to not be interested, looking down at his chest silently conversing with his cassettes, calming them down maybe. Well… sometimes the majority wins.

“Continue,” he renounced. 

“Okay,” said Bladwave cheerful, not fully aware of his dilemma. “But first of all, as a disclaimer, I would like to say that the Decepticon Secret Police, or Decepticon Police Division as they used to say colloquially, was full of corruption and malpractice, and was rightfully disband; but as the precursor of the Justice Division they still deserve some level of respect.”

Tarn, sitting right beside her, looked affronted. Shockwave spoke up before he could say anything. “Is that your thesis statement?”

She look a bit surprised by the question, she had already told him this in one form or another. Maybe this was his own weird roundabout way of supporting her. “Yes,” she answered, then she turned away from her favorite scientist with a grin on her face and began her tale.

“So... it all started when I got accepted into the Decepticon Police Academy, which technically wasn’t really an academy, it was just 10 cycle trial where this scarred up old mech yelled at my face and made me memorize all the possible infractures that a mech could commit and trust me, there were a lot. Barely even had any weapons practice and I think, one prerequisite simulation. In the end, of the hundred or so that ingressed usually only about five actually graduated, when I graduated there were only two of us, me and some mech who was sent off to be a guard sentry. With my scores I was accepted into the main units… The main units are… well, it’s sort of a complex web of systems…”

“I didn’t know the police had had units!” Interrupted Thundercracker, surprised with himself. But Bladewave took it in stride.

“‘Course you didn’t know, we didn’t want you to know. It was called the Secret Police for a reason, we didn’t tell the general public anything, everything we did was covert, only reporting to our superiors, sometimes not even then… Actually, there was honestly a huge accountability issue, one of the many reasons we got disband.” She ended sort of somberly, but then was cheerful as she turned toward Megatron. “But, I can talk about in now, right? I mean, it’s already disband, no harm can come, right?”

Megatron wasn’t sure, the police division disband was a long time ago and he didn’t remember much about it. Soundwave hadn’t said anything, so it likely wasn’t an information risk. The Decepticon leader gave a small nod, and the crazy femme continued on.

“Now, I would have loved to join the Decepticon Police as Nightrider. Unfortunately, as Nightrider I had a bit of reputation for being a little…” 

“Party crazy,” said Bludgeon, ever so helpfully. She glared, then smiled and winked at him.

“Disorderly,” Bladewave amended, “they wouldn’t have accepted me as Nightrider, so I change my designation to… Righteous Ride.” She said it with a prideful wistfulness. “Now, if you think that the DPD just sat around eating rust sticks and drinking caffeinated Energon…” She pulled out a long orange cylindrical sweet and nibbled at it’s edge, “then you’d be a hundred percent right. But we also had to do the tasks assigned to us and each unit did different jobs…”

The First Unit, she explained to them, was the command unit, in charge of all the other units. They received direct order from the Command Center or other high rankers, then they gave the those order onto the rest of the units, of course the occasional order went out that only convenienced them, so… “Another of the reasons for the disband,” she lamented.

The Second Unit was the main police force, they did almost all the work. They hunted down criminals and made arrests. They got order from the Command Unit but also did their own thing; they interrogated and investigated and jailed, more importantly they hunted criminals down and caught them or killed them if that was the order. If they saw crime they could make an arrest, unfortunately they were easy to pay off.

“They got payed?” asked Black Shadow, interested in the the aspect of money that was made by this secret division that no one knew anything about. 

The happy-go-lucky femme seemed a bit put off. “Yeah, no. Not officially but sometimes, well, a criminal would pay a cop to look the other way or give him a warning so they’d avoid arrest.”

Bladewave continued disclosing and finished off her rust stick; the Third Unit was in charge of theft, property damage and other petty crimes, though more often than not the stolen items mysteriously disappeared from the evidence lockers. The Fourth Unit was the “public safety unit”; they were supposed to be an internal affairs investigation unit but really they just spied and searched for dissidents among the ranks. They had a special force known as the Cobalt Sentries, that were given free rein and had no restrictions whatsoever. They had a couple instances of erroneous kills and arrests, and some unauthorized recruitments, but mainly they were the most loyal and efficient ones of the bunch.

“The Fifth Unit was the administration unit, they mostly did what Command told them to do. Sometimes they dealt with online crime and identity scams, but overall, under their command, they didn’t have much importance.” 

“Who’s command?” asked Starscream, he caught something, the flash of a look on Bladewave’s face when she said ‘their’.

“The 1st Unit, the people in charge, the commander.”

“Anyone in specific?” the decepticon SIC became insistent.

“That was so long ago. I’d rather not give names,” she answer, her optics briefly flicked left, Tarn was very attentive to the conversation. Her message was clear: I ain’t no snitch.

“And what did they think of assassinations?” 

“Like, within the police? That didn’t really happen that much. Sure, there was corruption and abuse but it was mostly outward, towards others, not within the force.With in the ranks you’d need solid evidence to detain a suspect on murder charges. You’d need some serious pull to get out of those.”

“So under their command, there were mechs who got out of trouble?” Starscream continued his interrogation.

“Yeah, sometime.” The short femme wondered if he was asking for personal reasons.

“And under your command?”

“Well, I never really had to deal w- Damn it all to the pits!” 

Everyone started hushed talk amongst themselves, murmurs filled the room.

“You got me! You played me,” Bladewave exclaimed, pointing at him. “With your stupid sexy wings and bright distracting colors! Primus, I'm such a fool. You got me!”

“Yes I did.” Starscream smirked, victorious.

“YOU WERE COMMANDER OF THE POLICE!?” Skywarp shouted, a bit slow on the uptake but essentially quieting everyone down.

“Ugh, yeah sort of. Look, just wait a klik, I’ll get to that, it's complicated... there were extenuating circumstances.” She took a deep breath to calm herself, seekers, huh. She'll have to be more careful when she was holding back secrets; not just with her thoughts, she glanced at Communications Officer, but with her words as well, she gazed captivated by the smirking Air Commander. 

“Let's start at the beginning, I was supposed to be in the 5th unit but all the units had a limited number of officers and there wasn't any room for me there. So I was assigned to the second unit and giving a partner. The second unit had a partnership system: they were a pair, two mech to keep each other in check so that they didn't commit infractions, not that that actually worked. In order to prevent physical fights and keep things balanced of the two one was usually big mech and the other a little mech, the big one to bust doors open and detain baddies, the little one to sneak around and investigate.”

Everyone but the seekers looked at her with pity in their optics. She rolled her optics at the all the massive warframes, to them being small was... oh, so horrible.

“Unfortunately the reality of it was that the 2nd unit had more big officers then… anything else. All the larger officers were already in partnerships, and so I got paired up with someone who was the same size as me.” Someone gave a chuckle, she glared toward the direction of the sound. “Yeah, just two little mechs on the same team.” That got some laughs, ha. How funny. They won't be laughing we they find out who the other mech was.

“My partner was a real bad mech,” she said soberingly, “ that big footed sadist got a real kick out of punishing criminals. Had a real knack for catching them, too. I cared for him in my own way, wouldn't be the person I am today without him.” She thought back to when they had first met. “In the beginning it was hard. I was new, didn't know what I was doing, and he didn't speak a word of Neocybex. I had to learn how to speak old cybertronian, which was a sacrifice, trust me, it’s hard.”

“The correct term is Primal Vernacular,” interjected Tarn, and the room tensed up. Bladewave didn't seem to notice as she turned to address him.

“I learned to speak it, I'm pretty sure that gives me the right to call it whatever I want.”

Tarn hadn't expected resistance, he was surprised by the backtalk. “I'm also well versed in the language and yet I would invoke it's proper title and refer to it with the well earned respect it deserves.”

“First of all, it doesn't need respect, it's a dead language. Only me, nerds and ancient old fraggers know how to speak it. Secondly, the name Primal Vernacular that was a assigned to it by scholars millions of years after it was first spoken, the “proper title”, as you called it, would be セイバートロン語” she spoke in a weird glitchy tongue, Tarn did not understand her it wasn't the Primal he was accustomed to. “It roughly translates to Cybertron-ish, which sounds super lame and means the word of Cybertron, except no one speaks a word of it now, they spoke it back in the olden days like some type of old and ancient cybertronian…” she said with a deadpan expression. “Besides judging by your reaction you are not ‘well versed’, you probably only understand the basic intonation which is the minimum anyone bothers to learn now a days. Do you even speak it? Can you even tell the difference between the a proper cast and intonation?”

“Cast?” Tarn tone was of surprised confusion. Bladewave rolled her eyes.

“It's the true meaning behind each word, like a glyph but with ten different meanings at any given time. Which you would know if you were actually as ‘well versed’ as you said you were.” She finished chastising him and near the end of the table a large purple mech let out a chuckle in an otherwise tense and quiet room. “You shouldn't have picked a fight with me when I know I'm going to win. I'm 10 steps ahead of you at any given time, Tarn, 10.”

“A person like you shouldn't have been a commander.” He practically growled.

“Well, at least you're right about that. But I'll get to that in a klik, where was I?” She asked generally, Tarn indignant turned his head away from her.

“Your partner was a jerk,” said Skywarp cheerfully. This femme was gonna die if she kept provoking Tarn and he had front row seats. Boy, was he excited!

“That alt of a gun was a jerk and I mean that literally, his alt mode was a gun, a rifle. But he's also reason I'm such a good shot, I almost respect him for that, the fragger. We were an incredible duo, great friends, team Rightstock as they used to called us. Right for Righteous, everyone always forgot the Ride part. And Stock for... Forestock.”

Megatron made a strange sound at the back of his throat, like a gasp. Tarn whipped his head so fast, that his neck also made a weird noise. He gaped in shock.

“Oh sorry,” Bladewave pretended she didn't see those reactions. “He also changed his name. I think now he goes by… Vos. Is that correct, Tarn?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided that Ancient Cybertronian will represented as Japanese in this fic. It makes sense to me, it sort of honors the origins of the Transformers series. But don't worry I won't use it a lot cause I don't actually speak the language.


	4. Woop-woop! That's the sound of da beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Be an officer? You wicked overseer!_   
>  _You hotshot, wanna get props and be a savior_   
>  _First show a little respect, change your behavior_
> 
>  
> 
> Megatron didn’t know if he should be impressed by her cavalier attitude or horrified.
> 
> “Why would someone like you decide to become a police officer?” He asked.
> 
> “Cops don’t get arrested,” she answered shrugging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dedicate this chapter to Spitfire_the_wounded, I sort of put this fic on the back-burner but I saw the comments they wrote almost a month ago and felt revitalized. I've been a little busy with school and packing, and soon I might move to a house that needs remodeling, so I'll probably have even less time. But I'm always thinking about this fic and I basically have it all planned out. So if you like it let me know, I'll make an extra effort to try to get this done.

Tarn continued to stare conflicted. The room was abuzz once more. 

“You… you know Vos?” He never thought to ask too much of Vos’ past as Forestock, of his time before he joined the DJD, having still been reeling from the previous Vos’ betrayal.

“‘Course, we're old friends. The 2nd Unit had an inhumane 5 jorn work cycle, we'd help each other stay awake. He used to kick my face with his big clanky feet when I nodded off on duty. And when he slept I'd gently take his face plate off and stick a long pointy spike to the back of it and then I'd slam it back on. He'd wake up screaming,” She gave out a cackle, “it was hilarious.”

“That seems a bit cruel,” commented Thundercracker.

“Don't dish out what you can't take, he taught me that,” she said sagely, “Trust me, he did a lot of worse things to me.”

“Why didn't I know about this?” Tarn confronted. To which Bladewave only gave a shrug.

“I haven’t actually seen him since, can’t say how he thinks now but... No one likes to talk about being part of the police division… bad things would happen to ya if you said you used t’ be a cop. That why I changed my name after.”

“Why? What would happen?”

“Um, let's just say but after the disband a lot well-known officers were killed. I don't know if they were targeted specifically, you know for having an anger the wrong mech, or if it was just a general hate towards police officers but… the proof is in the engeron jelly.” She finished wistfully, some had been.. not good but, decent mech.

“Did they deserve it?” Asked Skywarp morbidly. No, no they didn't. Not in Bladewave's opinion.

“Well, did the police division abused their powers as keepers of truth and justice? Yes, yes they did.” She avoided the question.

“Like, what did you do?” He urged.

“What we were ordered to do. Though sometimes the punishments exceeded the crime a bit too much.”

“What was the worst punishment?” Tarn questioned, he didn’t like not knowing anything about this… this mech.

“Execution, no trial.” Was he interrogating her?

“And the most lenient?” Yup, he definitely was.

“Brig time or a brief prison stance. Though different divisions had different degrees of punishment.” Oh, man. She didn’t want back and forth interrogation, it closes off a story, an open dialogue is better. She caught Starscream’s gaze… and it looked like he knew that too.

“That doesn't seem that bad,” commented the Air Commander.

“One time someone died in the brig,” she offered up quickly, perhaps too quickly. 

“Someone died in the brig…” The Decepticon SIC was intrigued. “How did that happen?”

“Well they put him in the brig...” she said, already regretting mentioning this story. Trying yo get out of one corner, she ran wheels first into another. “... and then we sort of forgot about him.”

“They let someone starve to death in the brig.” Megatron correctly concluded, it was a statement not a question.

“WhAt?...nO!” Bladewave’s voice cracked and came out high and squeaky. She took a breath and then amended, trying to appease the warlord. “That was a long time ago. The autopsy report said that he died from spark failure.”

“Yeah, his spark failed because he starved.” Starscream pointed out.

“That's one possibility.” She shrugged.

“That's the only possibility!”

“You weren't there, so…”

“Neither were you! That’s why he died!”

“Could you really kill whoever you wanted? Did you have that much power?” Megatron asked, ignoring his screaming second, his face was blank but inside he was curious. The questions surprised Bladewave, she thought on it for a second.

“...no, unwarranted deaths were actually very rare.”

“There were warranted deaths?”

“Of course. If we got execution orders or if there was an open bounty we were permitted to hunt any mech down and…” she blew a raspberry and signed slicing at the throat. She was smiling again, happy-go-lucky inspite the topic. “Also, if the prep was resisting arrest we were allowed lethal force. If they verbally admitted to a crime. Or turned traitorous, or renounced the deception cause.”

Tarn was relieved, maybe the police division hadn't been that bad, Vos just didn't want to be associated with people like this... Bladewave.

“How did you know if they were traitors?” Asked the DJD leader, maybe he’d learn something useful.

“Well, we had reports from the other units or we found evidence ourselves. I personally never did this but I heard that other officers planted evidence false evidence, they'd place fake Autobot badges on them or in their subspace and then we'd  _ interrogate _ them until they confessed.” Not realizing she had switched to the very self implicating 'we’. It was obvious to everyone by the way she had said interrogate, that there was a horrible connotation behind it. 

“Because of these things… well, after the disband, it’s understandable that former officers had such a hard time afterwards. I heard that a some people tried to give Barricade a hard time, till he showed them he was in someone to mess with, ha.”

“Barricade, the scout leader?” Asked the Decepticon leader, he hadn’t realized that his most loyal scout had a past in the Decepticon Secret Police.

“…he has a police car alt mode.” She replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Then realizing the tone of the question, she added. “He was one of the good ones. He was The best captain, when I was there he was one of the leaders of the second unit.”

“The good ones?”

“Yeah, you know,there were good police officers, like Barricade and Howlback, who were fair and just.”

“Like Vos.” Tarn interjected. The ex-cop femme grimaced.

“Sure,” her voice cracked, and then she continued in her normal voice, “And then, as I said earlier, there were bad cops who where, ya know, corrupt and stuff. In the between there was a sort of middle ground, most officers were in the middle, they didn’t… they weren’t the worst, but they didn’t try that hard either. They were average, like me and- uh, me, like me. I definitely lean more toward the middle.”

“That’s a weird divide…” said the Con’s second.

“Yeah,” Bladewave admitted, “I don’t, but a lot of people blame the two work shifts. The mech on half-shift worked half the time on the frontlines and half on the force, they had a lot of leeway but less responsibilities. They sometimes did bad stuff if it was convenient. The mech on full-shifts, were cops all the time, they had tons more power but also all responsibility and the long endless work hours. They were so sleep deprived they didn’t care if they did bad stuff or not. I mean, at some point your so tired, you wonder should you be torturing this mech, but it’s an order and you haven’t recharged in days, so you don't care, you just wanna do the work, finish your job and be done with it.”

“That actually makes reasonable sense,” offered the seeker commander.

“I guess...”

“If not the shifts, what do you blame then?”

“I personally blame the enforcers…”

“Enforcers!?” Starscream was surprised, what did the horrid police of the old government have to do with the Decepticons.

“Yeah, when the war started, the ones that joined the Decepticons found it way easy to make themselves at home in the Secret Police. Sure, they shaped it into a functioning division but they also brought along all their ‘bad habits’...”

“That’s…”

“Interesting,” she offered, “You know they weren’t actually that bad, on the scale from corrupt to competent. And by the time I joined there weren’t that many on the force… that being said, you could always tell. We were all cops technically but you could tell, they’d been cops for longer, since before the war. When you close your optics and picture a cop, how they act, talk and are… that’s exactly what they were like, text-pad definition.”

“A lot Autobots were enforcers too.” Tarn commented. Bladewave scoffed insulted.

“If you’re insinuating something, I’d like to point out that the DPD had less of a track record for traitors then the DJD has now.” Tarn sucked his teeth and the room winced. Bladewave muttered, “... if that even means anything.”

“You’re the one to insinuate you forced out confessions!”

“No, I didn’t!” She answered back hotly. “Besides if you can recall, the DPD didn’t have a list, we had a quota!”

Tarn made to speak but she didn’t let him.

“We had to kill- arrest a certain number of traitors and criminals in a specific amount of time or we’d lose our badges! So yeah, I guess sometimes that meant we forced a little to much or pushed to hard.” Bladewave to a breath, calmer. “Back then it was hard, okay. We didn’t have the luxury of a list, we had to go out and patrol, stop and search, detain and interrogate. Find a traitor, prove he was a traitor and then hunt him down if he was on the run.”

“... that’s not practical.” 

“Again, there were many reasons for the disband, but ex-enforcers weren’t one of them. In fact, I used to suspect our commander was one…”

“And your commander’s name?”

“... I didn’t… You know I actually don’t know their real name, but they used a nickname. Everyone called them Chief.”

“I have a question,” said Black Shadow, drawing attention from Tarn and Bladewave’s little back and forth.

“Go for it!” She smiled turning to the Phase Shifter.

“Did you ever accept bribes?”

Her face froze, and her lip plates closed and press against each other. Her brows were furrowed. She opened her mouth.

“Anyways, Vos! I haven’t seen him in such a long time. Tarn! How is he? How’s Vos?

“Vos is good, he's fine,” Tarn answered hesitant, like everyone a little stunned at how blatantly she ignored the question.

“Oh I'm so glad! From the DPD to the DJD, who would have thought he'd make it so far and he's not even a rank climber.”  _ Like me, _ everyone heard. “Hey Tarn, when did you learn primal? Was it after Vos joined, or were you one of those nerds who learned it just because they needed something to brag about?”

“I knew Primal Vernacular beforehand,” it was amazing how annoyed someone can look while wearing a mask. 

“Then how come you haven't learned to talk proper ‘Primal Vernacular’ now that Vos is on your team. He quite a good teacher you know.”

“I'm currently teaching Vos to speak Cyberhex, he knows several words already.”

“What that was an option!? Huh, I wouldn't have bothered.”

“What? Why not?”

“You know what they say it’s easier to change oneself then to expect the change in others to come naturally.”

“Did you just quote Towards Peace at me?” Tarn asked incredulous, no one had ever done that.

“No, I misquoted it.”

“You're horrid! Vos would never have been friends with you! He's too respectable!” He spat, he honestly didn’t know how to deal with someone like her. No one had ever actively tried to get under his platings, the threat of death usually worked and he was left alone. 

“Your forgetting it was an assigned partnership, he didn't have a choice! Ha!”

“Even then, it's just not possible that Vos would want anything to do with you!” He really believed that, she had to be faking it.

“I can prove it to you, you have his comm don't you?” She asked, an idea forming.

“Don't you have it?” 

“I change my comm more often than I change names. Anyways why don't you send him a message from me and that will prove our friendship” She offered.

“A message?”

“Yeah in primal,” she said with a smirk. “I'll help you pronounce it properly.”

“… fine. What's the message?”

Bladewave pulled out a data pad and a stilo from her subspace. “Let me write it out phonetically, so you can pronounce it.”

She wrote something out and handed it to him. He looked at it inquisitive.

“What does it say?”

“Just a personal greeting between friends, he'll know it's me.”

Tarn frowned, maybe she did know him. He clicked his comm on, and dial up Vos.

“Boku no chinchin wa chiisai” He said aloud.

The large and scary purple horned mech at the other end of the room burst out laughing. A loud shriek could be heard from the inside of Tarn’s head, from his comm. Tarn swiped at Bladewave with very lethal intentions, but only grabbed air. She had disappeared from her chair though she hadn't dodged, she had fallen to the floor with laughter. 

“Primus! I can't believe I made you say that!”

“What did I say?” He growled threateningly. She continued laughing hysterically. “What did you make me say?”

“Sa- s-sso sorry.” She barely got a word out, she was laughing so hard, having trouble crawling her way up back up to her chair.

“What did you make him say?” ask Megatron, concerned and trying to get to the bottom of this nonsense. Bladewave cover her mouth trying to hold in the laughter, she couldn't get a word through.

“Cyclonus,” Megatron turn toward to the older purple mech who was chuckling, “do you know what she said?”

“Lord Megatron,” he answered gracefully, it was rare to see this old mech look so amused, “I believe Tarn has indicated he has a small sized...”

“I'll kill you!” Tarn made another grab at her but was stop by another shriek from in his comms. “What! No! Not you Vos! ...I didn't mean to say that!... Are you asking how small! That's inappropriate!... No it's not! It's proportionally sized!... I thought I was saying something else!... Because YOUR friend told me to say it!”

At this point, everyone in the room was making an unmeasurable effort to try to keep from laughing. Skywarp was leaning over himself, hands on his mouth, tears pouring from his optics, trying to hold it in. This was the most hilarious thing that ever happened, the greatest prank ever seen. Megatron was biting his tongue, staring off into the distance trying to keep a straight face. Even the Phase Shifters were shaking, hiding their faces.

Then Bladewave stood, leaned in toward the side of Tarn’s face, arm over his shoulder; she was practically in his lap. It was no longer funny, though she didn’t seem to realize it, no one ever dared to invade Tarn’s personal space without winding up dead.

“Hey Vos! Remember me?” She spoke up right into the big tank’s audial, where his build-in comm likely was. Then pressed her own audial next to his helm, to hear the reply.

“That’s so mean! Of course I’m still alive. Don’t act so surprised.”

Any minute now she was going to die. They were sure of it, Tarn would not let that stand.

“I go by Bladewave now… Well, we’ve established that… You haven’t changed at all, have you? ...Well I’ll have you know, I’ve matured.”

Face pressed almost completely against his mask, she started playing with the tread tracks on Tarn’s shoulders, picking off dirt from in between the seams.

“Ok, no promises… Well, I’m in a command meeting right now. I’ll comm you later… Yeah, I still have your comm.”

Tarn was in shock, almost paralized, the bubbly happy field that he had occasionally brushed against was now surrounding him. A warm gentle feeling overwhelmed him, the sensation was too much, he couldn’t tell what he was feeling, was that meant for him- no it was for Vos, it felt nice and yet jarring at the same time, it was like he was suffocating. And Bladewave knew that, she could make her field and emotions intensify when she was touching others. Even though it wasn’t for him, for a Decepticon who never knew affection, kindness could be used like a weapon. ...Though it wasn’t likely it would work more than once. She removed herself from Tarn and sat in her own chair, a little glidey talking to Forestock after such a long time, unaware that everyone stared at her in shock.

“Do you have a death wish?” Asked Starscream in awe. 

“No… but everyone always asks me that. ...Dunno why.” 

Megatron didn’t know if he should be impressed by her cavalier attitude or horrified.

“Why would someone like you decide to become a police officer?” He asked.

“Cops don’t get arrested,” she answered shrugging.

“What.” Her blunt honesty was like a slap to the face.

“Well actually, that's a funny little story. You see I got arrested a lot as Nightrider. You know, for driving under influence and disorderly conduct, Bludgeon can tell you all about that. So this one time I was in an overnight cell. And I heard this one guard offer another some drugs they had confiscated. It was basically happening right in front of the bars of my cell, so I was like ‘Hey, you can’t do that!’ and the guard was like ‘Why not?’. I told him he’d get arrested cause it was illegal, and then he said to me, ‘Jokes on you sweetspark, police officers can’t get arrested’. That’s when I decided to become a cop.”

“You’re amazing,” Bludgeon grinned, as everyone else gapped, stunned, even Tarn broke out of his stupor. 

“Thanks.” She smiled.

“And you somehow became a Commander?” Starscream shrieked with consternation.

“Ugh, you’re not gonna let that go, are you? In reality it was more of a technicality,” how was she going to explain that, then she remembered what Chief used to say to her. “In order for you to understand how I, very briefly, became Commander of the Police Division you must first ask yourself a question… If you see a trainwreck do you blame the train or the tracks…” She paused, “... or do you blame the motorcycle that ran in front of the train?” 

“You didn't,” Bludgeon implored.

“I did.” The room took stock of the small purple femme. Her small stature, her kibble, her two wheels, one at the back of each shin. Bladewave had motorcycle alt-mode.

“...you ran in front of a train?” Came a question from the other end of the table, it was Astrotrain, the only train alt-mode in the room. He sounded a little intimidated.

“Drove,” she corrected and continued on. “Now this question you’ve asked, it may never have answer…”

“Yes, it does!” Bludgeon and Starscream, and several others chimed in at the same time. Bladewave continued as if she hadn’t heard.

“But you will feel it in your joints for the rest of your life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting a little frustrated with this fic, I keep writing more then I originally intend to. In the beginning I just had wanted to write like one small chapter for each name but the Police division story got away from me. Also Tarn, bothering Tarn distracts me but it's fun. If you're interested Bladewave definitely has legitimate reasons for bullying Tarn, not that she needs them. They'll be revealed in the future so stick around!


End file.
